Are the drivers and role ofonline trust the same for all web sites and consumers? A large-scaleexploratory empirical studyThe
authorsposit that to formulate a successful internet marketing strategy, companiesneed a deeper understanding of how trust is developed and how it affectsconsumer behavioural intent in the online context. They develop a conceptualmodel that links website and consumer characteristics, online trust, andbehavioural intent. Website design in particular has been identified as themain element and accordingly been tested in this research.Thisresearch mainly aims to examine differences across website categories; itfurthermore investigates potential
determinants of trust, in particular websitedesign; in other words, the authors identify the overall goal as to investigateconsumer heterogeneity in drivers of online trust to provide some generalizableinsights into these issues. Measures oftrust determinants, trust, and behavioural intent were developed on an initialexploratory study and a qualitative study.
Respondents were asked to examine aparticular website and asked about general questions about their experience(e.g. likes, dislikes, overall impression, fulfilment of expectations) andspecific questions about site layout, navigation, and content. However, inorder to control for expert bias and hence, closer average consumerrepresentation, respondents whose immediate family worked in public relations,marketing, or website design/production were eliminated from the sample. A largesample consisting of 550.000 households or 1,4 million people were to representa cross-section of the U.S. population. 27 websites wereinvestigated from eight categories of industries although two went out of businessduring the study period. The eight categories of industries were chosen from thelist of the 18 most popular categories among household consumers as reported byNielsen/Netratings during 2001.